


Of Haunted Houses and First Meetings

by offensiveagentpie



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Gen, Halloween, Haunted Houses, M/M, Meet-Cute, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 23:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5109419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/offensiveagentpie/pseuds/offensiveagentpie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you were to ask Hermann Gottlieb how he’d prefer to spend a chilly Friday evening in October, accompanying his little brother and three of his friends to a haunted house wouldn’t even make the list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Haunted Houses and First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> Around this time last year, I went to a special lecture on the psychology of fear and why people enjoy it, especially when it comes to horror movies and haunted houses. It was a fantastic presentation and I loved it. The speaker, [Margee Kerr](https://twitter.com/MargeeKerr) brought up a point about shared experiences of fear creating closeness.
> 
> My friend and I were immediately like: This begs for Haunted House fics.
> 
> I started writing this that very night....and it sat unfinished until literally today. So I'm sorry if the ending doesn't seem to fit, it was written after a long hiatus. But I figured, given the season, it was time to post it.

If you were to ask Hermann Gottlieb how he’d prefer to spend a chilly Friday evening in October, accompanying his little brother and three of his friends to a haunted house wouldn’t even make the list. And yet, here he was, bundled in his too large parka, waiting in a line of chattering teenagers outside of- Hell House: the haunted experience guaranteed to scare you to hell and back!

Bastien had just turned thirteen this past Tuesday, the last of his friends to do so. Being of age, they hadn’t been able to shut up about finally being able to go to the town’s best haunted house. Hermann, being the next youngest was unfairly nominated by his elder siblings to be the one to chaperone them. His many protests of being above such nonsense had only lead them to teasing him about being secretly too scared to go.

And, well, he couldn’t just stand for that.

So, here he is, standing surrounded not only by teenagers younger than him, giggling and being an annoyance in general, but by young adults closer to his own age. To his private horror, he even sees some of his classmates. He finds himself feeling out of place as he always does in large social situations like this. Bastien and his friends are grouped together, gossiping about the scares their schoolmates have told them about, and everyone else seems to be surrounded by friends as well. 

Hermann, however, is standing around, looking at various decorations of fake corpses and feeling all too self-aware and awkward. He’s just about to turn and inspect the rubbery head of a bearded man impaled upon a foam spike when something prods him in the shoulder and a high voice says, “Hi there!” far too close to his ear.  
He’s ashamed at the fact that he jumps slightly.

“Easy there!” the voice says, “I’m not even part of the show! Is this your first haunted house? It’s mine too! Are you excited? I am.”

Hermann barely gets a chance to process all of that information, (really, how can anyone talk _that_ fast?), as he turns to find the person talking to him.

He needs to look down slightly to do so. The boy appears to be close in age to Hermann himself; he’s wearing a baggy striped hoodie and too tight jeans. His brown hair flies in every direction and he’s peering at Hermann from behind thick framed glasses.

“I-I beg your pardon?” he stutters out, voice cracking slightly from disuse. He curses himself as it does.

The boy smiles, “I said, is this your first haunted house? It’s mine too. My name’s Newton, you can call me Newt,” he says, offering a hand. “What’s yours?”

“Oh, Hermann,” he answers, awkwardly shaking Newt’s hand. “And yes, this is my first haunted house, they’re…well, they’re not really my thing.”

Newt grins at him mischievously, “Scare easy, huh?”

Hermann bristles. “I most certainly do not. I just have better things to do with my time than spending it chasing down juvenile thrills.”

“Uh huh,” Newt replies, voice dripping with doubt. “Well, I’ve seen like, every scary movie _ever_ , so I think I’m gonna be fine,” he says, puffing out his chest slightly.

Hermann raises an eyebrow at the hyperbole and says, “Indeed” dryly, hoping that that would put an end to the conversation. He’s terrible at small talk.

It seems, however, that Newt has other ideas. In the course of 5 minutes he discovers that Newt is new in town, that he plans on obtaining a degree in Biochemistry as soon as he graduates high school, that he’s the lead singer and guitarist in garage band, that his mother is a famous opera singer, that he’s allergic to penicillin, and that his pet cat is named Gamera after the Japanese monster from the movies.

Despite Newt’s chatter, Hermann is pleased that he only has to give the occasional input to seem like he’s participating in the conversation. He’s even more pleased when the person gathering groups to go into the damned attraction alerts his brother that their group is next.

“Sorry man,” the employee says. He’s wearing a prosthetic that makes it look as though his neck has been slashed. “You need at least five people in a group to enter.”  
Bastien and his friends immediately whip around to Hermann, paying him attention for the first time all evening, and begin to protest. Newton, however, interrupts them.

“I uh…I‘ll go with you guys if you don’t mind,” he says sheepishly, not quite meeting Hermann’s eyes. “I’m flying solo…I don’t have any friends here yet, so…”

Something in Hermann’s gut squirms and he feels almost guilty for paying so little attention to Newt’s ramblings. “Er, yes…I don’t see a problem with that.”

He’s about to ask Bastien if he would mind, but he and his friends are already eagerly placing their hands up to be stamped. Turning back to Newt, he finds the boy watching him with bright eager eyes. “Thank you!” he says sincerely. Hermann nods once, feeling his cheeks heat up as his hand is stamped.

Inside the haunted house is everything Hermann expected. He reacts passively to most of the set ups: a macabre Alice in Wonderland style tea party room, a hallway of mutilated prison inmates, a doctor’s office where a patient is being disemboweled...it’s all terrifically fake. Hermann can’t seem to suspend his disbelief enough to be even remotely spooked. Bastien and his friends trudge on ahead, gasping and shrieking at every turn, but Newt stays close to Hermann.

The proximity is odd in and of itself; Hermann is not one for close contact. But, Newt’s reaction to everything is far more bizarre. He’s laughing at everything. Honest, delighted, face changing laughter and joy. Every so often he makes comments like, ‘fantastic’, or ‘that is _so_ cool’, but it’s mostly smiles and laughs.

When they get to a Mad Scientist’s Laboratory, Newton snorts with laughter and jovially nudges Hermann’s shoulder. “Gotta love those test tubes filled with multi-colored liquid,” he says with a grin. “Nothing like food coloring to accurately portray a laboratory set up,” his voice drips with well natured sarcasm. “And those formulas on that blackboard? The equations are nowhere _near_ being right.”

Hermann’s heart races at that, as lame as it sounds. He’d noticed that first thing, but to know that Newt noticed it as well makes promising little thoughts fire around his head. “Yes,” he whispers theatrically as Newt leans closer to hear him over the soundtrack of maniacal laughter being piped in over the speakers, “because no matter how mad you are, the quadratic formula is not going to help you find the circumference of a skull in order to perform a brain transplant.”

Newt turns to look at him, a surprised smile spreading across his face, and Hermann realizes just how close they are. His face burns and he’s about to lean back a bit when they turn a corner, and a woman wrapped in barbed wire leaps out at them shrieking at the top of her lungs.

They both scream and Newt latches onto him, Hermann spinning instinctively to protect them.

A few moments pass before it registers that they’re in no real danger, and they pull apart laughing as the lights flash. They both look at each other, and seem to be at an equal loss for words. 

“Well then, off we go!” Newt says, turning to lead the way, his voice is a bit shaky and his face is red, but Hermann knows he’s probably not much better. So, he puts his hands in his pockets and follows, mouth still trapped in a small smile.

They stay really close for the remainder of the walk through and a silent, but mutual, understanding builds between them to not say a word about it.

When they reach the end, they exit the building and find a tent set up with screens showing photos taken within the house. On the second screen, Hermann sees Bastien and his friends clutching onto each other’s coats in a sort of conga line, mouths all open in a scream of terror. The three of them are now in the process of buying the image as key chains.

The image on the next screen over, however, makes the back of his neck go hot. In the photo, Newt and Hermann are standing in a loose hug, faces lit up as they laugh at the fright they just received. He can’t help but notice that Newt’s looking at him in the photo, a shy smile making his eyes light up. It’s…well, it certainly isn’t a bad photo.

Embarrassment settles on him as he turns to see if Newt has seen the image as well. But he’s nowhere to be found. Hermann resolutely does not feel disappointment at the fact, but fails miserably. He stands and waits for Bastien and his friends, as his mind already starts telling him off for having any sort of hopeful thought at all.

After the boys have made their purchases, they gather around Hermann, giving him quick words of acknowledgement that they’re ready to go, before once again ignoring him completely. He’s fumbling in his pocket for his keys when he hears a voice call out his name.

Bastien and his friends head to the car, but Hermann stops, turning to see Newt doing an awkward little jog in his direction. “Ah! I caught you before you left, awesome! So, like, you should know that fear causes a lot of biological changes in a person, right?”

Hermann is about to confirm that, yes he does in fact know this, but Newt just plows on.

“And there’s correlation between sharing experiences like this and bonding, so like, being afraid together and coming out okay on the other side creates feelings of closeness and that’s pretty cool, really, when you get into the science of things, but anyway! That’s kind of what happened here, but also a bit not, because I think you’re pretty cool regardless of the fact that some screaming temp worker at a haunted house got us to hug, so I guess…” 

Newt pauses to take a breath and run his hand back through his hair, it makes it even messier than before. “Don’t like, freak out or anything, but yeah…you’re really cool and uh…” his face goes bright red. Hermann is standing like a deer in the headlights, he’s honestly not used to people talking to him for this long…let alone telling him that they find him cool.

Which means he’s definitely unprepared for when Newt pops up on his toes and presses a kiss to his cheek. He’s staring blankly ahead when Newt steps back. “Yep!” Newt says loudly. “There’s that, yeah, shit…okay. And this,” he holds out what looks to be a small envelope. Hermann takes it in a daze.

“Thanks for letting me join you and I’m really sorry if I’ve, liked, stunned you into never talking again or something…I’m, I’m gonna go now before I make this more awkward.”

“Bye,” Hermann says weakly, face still burning. 

Newt nods and gives him a quick wave before shuffling off.

Once he’s gone, Hermann looks down at the little envelope which turns out to actually be a cardstock print of their photo, surrounded by a bright Halloween decoration frame…Newton’s number is hastily written on the back. His heart beats hard in his chest, but he smiles to himself as he tucks the photo into his pocket. Tonight wasn’t such a waste after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Also [on my tumblr](http://offensiveagentpie.tumblr.com/post/132225968020). Come say hello!


End file.
